RIAA pulls 20 million links off Google, but “system isn’t working”

Group complains it shouldn't have to send "a thousand notices for the same song."

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) gave up on its plan to sue piracy out of existence years ago. Instead of mass-copyright lawsuits, the group is embracing a mass-takedown strategy, sending notices to both infringing sites and the sites that link to them, such as Google. These notices are issued constantly and involve thousands of URLs that the RIAA wants taken down. It has become a giant-sized game of whack-a-mole and the record industry group is seriously tired of it.

The RIAA put a blog post up today complaining that it sent 20 million takedown notices to Google last year. The group has sent almost the same number to the infringing sites themselves. Nevertheless, pirated content keeps appearing in Google searches, often on the same websites. Brad Buckles, an RIAA VP, writes in today's post:

Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. Importantly, the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free. So while 20 million might sound impressive, the problem we face with illegal downloading on the Internet is immeasurably larger. And that is just for music.

Buckles goes on to suggest that Google doesn't do anything to punish pirate sites, even when it receives hundreds of notices about a site. He even discusses the idea that the RIAA needs to send a full URL, calling it a "controversial interpretation" of copyright law by a tech company.

We are using a bucket to deal with an ocean of illegal downloading. Under a controversial interpretation by search engines, takedown notices must be directed at specific links to specific sound recordings and do nothing to stop the same files from being reposted as fast as they are removed.

It is certainly fair for search engines to say that they have no way of knowing whether a particular link on a specific site represents an illegal copy or not. Perhaps it’s fair for them to make that same claim at the second notice. But what about after a thousand notices for the same song on the same site? Isn’t it simply logical and fair at some point to conclude that such links are infringing without requiring content owners to keep expending time and resources to have the link taken down?

The post appears to be an opening shot as Congress prepares to review copyright law and the DMCA. "Some aspects of it no longer work," writes Buckles, but it isn't quite clear from this post how the group would like it to operate. In what seems to be a reference to the "six strikes" system, Buckles notes that "voluntary initiatives" with ISPs, payment processors, and advertisers are a good template.

The 20 million number is based on Google's own self-reporting about the RIAA in its annual transparency report. On May 20 alone, for instance, RIAA member companies sent 17 separate takedown notices to Google, with thousands of URLs in each notice. Eight of the notices had more than 10,000 links each.

the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free.

I'm sure most pirates don't think of Google when pirating something Reminds me of how isoHunt stated in defense of the lawsuit that they too were like Google and any torrent file you searched for on the site was also indexed on Google! (which is partially true I guess)

There really needs to be a cost associated with takedown notices. And filing a false notice should be punishable.

If the copyright is valuable a small fee is worth it to defend it, and if it's not, then the copyright should be given over to the public domain so that the culture and society can benefit from it. You know, that thing that copyright was originally meant to help with.

Not a lot of sympathy for RIAA/MPAA- their industries are making huge profits. Plus, this made me smile:

"Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. Importantly, the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music..."

No end in in sight, huh? Welcome to the world of defending your IP. Hell, welcome to the world of working adults. Software developers don't have it any better. We get sued for deploying in-app purchasing.

the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free.

Replace "free" with "for money", and that's the RIAA.

No, the RIAA produce nothing. That would be the member studios. The RIAA does nothing but take money from studios, file lawsuits, perform lobbying, and other such services (though it returns no money from lawsuits to artists). So, the RIAA is rather more like paid pirate sites - but the RIAA doesn't even contribute to word of mouth. Though, it appears funding for the RIAA is shrinking each year: http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dras ... ts-130522/

But what about after a thousand notices for the same song on the same site?

Yes, because the RIAA would never submit incorrect notices. I'm sure that each and every notice they send out is carefully reviewed and documented before it's sent out.

Seriously, how is anyone supposed to take any sort of thing seriously if you receive 10k notices for the same site in the period of a couple days. It seems like that is just asking for abuse of the system.

I think people have been saying that this kind of strategy would never work for more than ten years, not surprising it has taken a long time to finally realize it since it seems like denying reality has been a core concept of every plan of reaction they have tried

the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free.

Not everyone in the RIAA is having a hard time:"The cutbacks are not immediately apparent from the salaries paid to the top executives. RIAA Chairman and CEO Cary Sherman, for example, earned $1.46 million". (from the torrentfreak link)

So is RIAA proposing that sites get black listed from Google after a certain number of take down notices? Cause otherwise what is Google supposed to do? Just because a bunch of take down notices are issued doesn't mean that the "file" in question isn't changing names or beyond that, what if it is a generic name and Google gets a take down notice for Thebook.mp3 a bunch of times...but oh wait, the site has CCL song that appears with the same file name on the same site.

DMCA for all its ocean liner sized holes and problems at the very least sensibly protects companies like Google. The onous is not on Google to determine infringing status and it NEVER SHOULD BE. It is your copyright RIAA (or the copyright of a company you represent), you figure out if it is infringing.

Lets top it off with penalties for incorrect take down notices in a DMCA take 2 and I think we'd be on the right track.

Lets also add in more protection than that for those who get targeted incorrectly and less burden on having to prove fraud in an incorrect take down notice.

the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free.

Replace "free" with "for money", and that's the RIAA.

No, the RIAA produce nothing. That would be the member studios. The RIAA does nothing but take money from studios, file lawsuits, perform lobbying, and other such services (though it returns no money from lawsuits to artists). So, the RIAA is rather more like paid pirate sites - but the RIAA doesn't even contribute to word of mouth. Though, it appears funding for the RIAA is shrinking each year: http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dras ... ts-130522/

What exactly am I looking at here? Did you bother reading the post you were responding to? Hint: it says exactly what you're saying, except with more brevity.

Honestly, it must suck to have your business model set on fire the way free information seems to have ruined groups like the RIAA (to hear them tell it, anyway.) What doesn't suck is watching them try to put the fire out by licking their fingers and pinching at the fringes.

Fix your system. It is broken. If it's easier, quicker and more reliable for me to get music "illegally," then we have a bigger problem than them vagrants taking things they haven't paid for.

Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. Importantly, the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free.

Of course there are no innovators - They sued them all out of existence..

No, the RIAA produce nothing. That would be the member studios. The RIAA does nothing but take money from studios, file lawsuits, perform lobbying, and other such services (though it returns no money from lawsuits to artists). So, the RIAA is rather more like paid pirate sites - but the RIAA doesn't even contribute to word of mouth. Though, it appears funding for the RIAA is shrinking each year: http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dras ... ts-130522/

What exactly am I looking at here? Did you bother reading the post you were responding to? Hint: it says exactly what you're saying, except with more brevity.

He's saying that it's the studios who are profiting from the artists and not actually producing anything. They just pay the RIAA as enforcement.

"Importantly, the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free."

Of course the "targets" don't pretend to be innovators, dumbass. That should be your job. Why the RIAA can't even fathom that the burden for innovation is on them speaks directly to why they are an utter failure.

I think that this guy pretty much just doesn't understand how a search engine works. It's telling when he seems to be saying that Google ought to be policing the web in some way, as opposed to simply indexing it, which is what they do. Google isn't generating the content fella, they're indexing it, like any search engine!

Good lord the RIAA needs to go the way of the Compact Disc, particularly since it seems so devoted to dead mediums ...

No one is going to end piracy with more takedowns, lawsuits, DRM, or Legislation. They really need to wise up to the fact that the business is changeing and get witht he times. Provide a reliable, easy to access legitimate and safe source of the content and you will kill piracy. Hide your content behind oppressive paywalls, bizarre DRM schemes and exploitative uneven regional controls and hell yea people are goign to infringe.

They don't seem to get it people are nto infringing to save money they are infringing to get the content they want when they want in a format they can use. They are torrenting for convenience because the legit methods to get content are too convoluted for the average user to put up with.

Also I read about the millions of takedowns and wonder how many of those are people with pictures of their babies dancing to single ladies.

the targets of our notices don’t even pretend to be innovators constructing new and better ways to legally enjoy music—they have simply created business models that allow them to profit from giving someone else’s property away for free.

Replace "free" with "for money", and that's the RIAA.

No, the RIAA produce nothing. That would be the member studios. The RIAA does nothing but take money from studios, file lawsuits, perform lobbying, and other such services (though it returns no money from lawsuits to artists). So, the RIAA is rather more like paid pirate sites - but the RIAA doesn't even contribute to word of mouth. Though, it appears funding for the RIAA is shrinking each year: http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dras ... ts-130522/

What exactly am I looking at here? Did you bother reading the post you were responding to? Hint: it says exactly what you're saying, except with more brevity.

Did you? The RIAA do nothing but represent the studios. The studios are the ones who are refusing to innovate, and screwing artists. No trade group produces anything, they simply represent the interests of the industry players which support those lobbies. Why would anyone expect a trade group to ever produce anything?

No, the RIAA produce nothing. That would be the member studios. The RIAA does nothing but take money from studios, file lawsuits, perform lobbying, and other such services (though it returns no money from lawsuits to artists). So, the RIAA is rather more like paid pirate sites - but the RIAA doesn't even contribute to word of mouth. Though, it appears funding for the RIAA is shrinking each year: http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-makes-dras ... ts-130522/

What exactly am I looking at here? Did you bother reading the post you were responding to? Hint: it says exactly what you're saying, except with more brevity.

He's saying that it's the studios who are profiting from the artists and not actually producing anything. They just pay the RIAA as enforcement.

(Emphasis mine.)

Did YOU bother reading the post you were responding to? Is it "comment on things without reading them" day and nobody bothered to tell me?

Quote:

No, the RIAA produce nothing. That would be the member studios.

Edit:

Quote:

Did you? The RIAA do nothing but represent the studios. The studios are the ones who are refusing to innovate, and screwing artists. No trade group produces anything, they simply represent the interests of the industry players which support those lobbies. Why would anyone expect a trade group to ever produce anything?

I don't know why they think this is Google's problem. It's not Google's job to erase sites from the Internet. Speaking of the Internet, they aren't crying about Bing? Do they do it better or is the crying about search engines just stupid?

And I thought ISPs were already "fixing" piracy with deep packet inspection and throttling connections connections to oblivion.